India to Cooperate With France on Next Mission to Mars

France will become India’s partner in the next Indian mission to Mars, India’s Foreign Secretary Subrahmanyam Jaishankar said Monday.

Earlier in the day, French President Francois Hollande and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi held talks, signing several deals.

“On the space side we did three agreements today. The third one related to France participation in our next Mars mission,” Jaishankar told a briefing.

The other agreements are related to a future joint thermal infrared earth observation mission and the implementation of an earlier deal related to a payload to be carried by an Indian Oceansat-3 satellite.

In 2014, India’s Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM), also called Mangalyaan, reached Mars after a 10-month journey. The achievement marks the first time a nation has reached the Red Planet on its first try, although the European Space Agency, representing a number of countries, was also successful at its first attempt.